[Prayer] Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for the wonderful way that Your Word causes us to see more of our true self. And Lord, as we look into it and we are forced to consider the nature of our own hearts, Lord, we are humbled. Lord, we realize how far we fall short of the glory of God. We realize how even our best is but as filthy rags before Your sight. Lord, especially over these last few weeks as we've been able to look and contemplate the person and nature of Jesus Christ and to see how stark the contrast is between Him and religious men. Lord, it causes us to see how far we are removed from His nature and His person. And yet, Lord, we thank You for the reality that we just sang about, that even in these moments, there is a foretaste of what is yet to come, that You have promised that that which You have begun, You will indeed bring to completion. We thank You that we are being conformed to the image of God, and Lord, we recognize what a significant work that is, how much must take place to make us like the beautiful Savior that we see in the text of Scripture. But we pray and ask that this time of coming to the Word would once more be used by you to pierce the soul to cause us to see those areas that need attention, to draw out of us a genuine seeking after Him while He may be found, a cultivation of true humility, an earnest looking to the needs of others with the care and the compassion that is fitting of one who claims to follow Jesus Christ. So, Lord, we know that our minds are not what they ought to be. They need to be renewed. We know that our hearts are not what they ought to be. They need to be purified in their desires. And we know that our actions, Lord, are not what they ought to be. And we pray, Lord, that that fruit of righteousness may be cultivated amongst us now for His praise and His glory, by the power of the Holy Spirit, for we come asking it in the name of Jesus Christ, our Savior. Amen. [End]
Can I ask you please to open your Bibles to Luke chapter 14? Luke chapter 14. This morning we're going to look at verses 12 to 24. But all these events are taking place around a dinner table, and it's an awkward dinner table. And so, in order to remind us of the context, I want to read from verse one, but can I ask you please, before we do, to stand for the reading of the Word. Luke chapter 14, and reading from verse one:
[Scripture reading] One Sabbath, when He went to dine at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees, they were watching Him carefully. And behold, there was a man before Him who had dropsy. And Jesus responded to the lawyers and the Pharisees saying, “is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?” But they remained silent. Then He took him and healed him and sent him away. And He said to them, “which of you having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well on a Sabbath day will not immediately pull him out?” And they could not reply to these things. Now He told the parable to those who were invited. When He noticed how they chose the places of honor, saying to them, “When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honor that someone more distinguished than you be invited by him. And he who invited you both will come and say to you, give your place to this person. And then you'll begin with shame to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, friend, move up higher. Then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” He said also to the man who had invited him, “when you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or your rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.” When one of those who had reclined at the table with Him heard these things, he said to Him, “blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God.” But He said to him, “a man once gave a great banquet and invited many. And at the time for the banquet, he sent his servants to say to those who had been invited, come, for everything is now ready. But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, “I bought a field. They must go out and see it. Please have me excused.” And another said, “I have bought five yoke of oxen and I go to examine them. Please have me excused.” And another said, “I have married a wife and therefore I cannot come.” So the servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, “go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.” And the servant said, “sir, what you have commanded has been done and still there is room.” And the master said to his servant, “go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled. For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.”
Have a seat.
So, all this is taking place around the same dinner table. This is a four-course meal with a difference. It's a four-course meal where there's not a lot of eating taking place. There's a lot of awkward silence and there is one who was an invited guest who is the one who is maintaining that awkward silence. Every time He speaks, everybody else zips up. Every time He comments, everybody else squirms in the seat in which they recline. And in each course, Jesus is giving a warning. A warning that highlights what is so wrong with this broken system of religion. This broken system of the Pharisees, which, let's be careful as we come this morning, is not that far removed so often from the broken way we come and engage in our own religious practice.
The first thing that we saw at this dinner table in verses one to six, really Jesus gives “A warning against self-righteousness.” A warning against self-righteousness. A trap has been set. The people know what they are doing. They know what is up. That ruler of the Pharisees who just so happened to invite Jesus that Sabbath day, he had wicked intention in his heart. He wanted to expose Jesus. And he wanted to expose Jesus primarily as a Sabbath breaker. One who did not keep the Sabbath day holy.
And so, he orchestrated events by allowing to come to the dinner one who didn't get to sit down, but normally one who would have been kept outside. A man with this condition of swelling, of dropsy, a very visual, obvious ailment. And Jesus, because He's Jesus, He sees this man who is suffering and His heart goes out to him. And despite the scowls around the dinner table and the great feeling around that table of the one who is unclean, Jesus grabs that same individual with His hand firmly and heals miraculously that man before the gaze of everyone. The man immediately is made well again.
And in the interaction, Jesus talks and He spells out really a reminder about the very nature of the law. Not simply what was said, because the Pharisees had gone way beyond that and added words, added regulation, added their rules to the law. Rather, Jesus goes and says, we've got to think about the intention of the law. God has given the law that we may love Him with our heart, soul, mind, and strength. And He has given us the law that we may love our neighbor as ourselves. And here, Jesus, with that great love of neighbor, He really embodies the nature of the law and insists in that moment in healing the man. And in doing so, He exposes the lack of compassion, the lack of care, the really typical nature of the pharisaical system to the compassionate law that God had given.
So, what a warning against their self-righteousness. And then the second course comes. While still sitting in awkward silence, Jesus begins to talk again in verses 7 to 11. And here he gives “a warning against self-promotion.” If nobody else is going to speak, Jesus is going to talk about what He saw. And He watched how they all came and how they all charged for the best seats. How they all wanted to sit in the place of honor, and how that sat in such contrast to the wisdom presented in Proverbs and in other places through Scripture. And so, Jesus speaks to that situation. He speaks to this coveting, this seeking, the place of honor, and he tells a story that really highlights their falling. Don't think much of yourself or you will be humbled. Rather, there should be a heart that runs away from self-promotion, that allows others, and indeed the Lord, to be the great guardian of our fortunes. So, he gives us warning against self-righteousness. He gives us warning against self-promotion.
And then as we come to the next course, the third course of the meal this morning, we're gonna hopefully get the four as well, but in the third course, we see Him really give “a warning against pretend charity.” A warning against pretend charity. There in verses 12 to 14. If you look at verse 12, it begins by saying, “he said also to the man who had invited him.” Do you remember who that man was? Well, we were told in verse one who he was. This was the ruler or a ruler of the Pharisees. Here is one who leads the movement, who certainly embodies all that Jesus is cautioning here. And here in a very specific and direct way, Jesus doesn't talk to the crowd around the table, to His disciples, to others who may be eavesdropping in on the conversation at lunchtime. Rather, He hones in on the host himself.
And He speaks to him, if the last story really spoke to all the guests who were rushing for the best seat, now He turns attention to the host that sat at the center. And instead of saying, as most of us would encourage our children, instead of saying a polite thank you for the dinner, Jesus instead offers a helpful correction. A helpful correction that underlines the fundamental difference between the religion embodied in the ruler of the Pharisees and true religion embodied in Jesus Christ Himself.
Look at the rest of verse 12. “When you give a dinner or a banquet." Dinner was kind of what they were having, that kind of big lunchtime meal, but a banquet was always an evening event. It's the meal that goes way into the night. Think of it as like a wedding reception-style meal. Jesus says:
“When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”
Now, Jesus is talking about this Sabbath meal that everybody finds themselves at. And He notes something of what has taken place. The Sabbath, obviously, was very important to the Pharisees. That's how they sought to trap Jesus, because they thought they were Sabbath experts. And church for them did not stop at the synagogue service. Rather, the whole day was caught up with maintaining the Sabbath. And so, what this ruler of the Pharisees did by inviting guests over for dinner, that was seen as part of his religious practice. You know, that's what we do. As part of our Sabbath observance, we have people over to the home, show hospitality, bring them in, and fellowship with one another. We have a lot of those similar patterns today. It's not that far removed from our context and culture.
So, this Sabbath meal, very much to this Pharisee, was part of his worship, part of his religious practice. And he thought he was doing good, because look how many people are around my table. Look how many guests I have brought together. Jesus is bound to be impressed with me. But verse 12, Jesus speaks to that same man. And He gets him to take note of who actually is around the table. Because though there may be many people, it really is an exclusive club. Verse 12, look at it. “Your friends, your brothers, your relatives, or your rich or wealthy neighbors.” It's all the people you would be close to. It's all the people that either you really like your friends or you have to put up with because they're family, but you're with them anyway. They're your crew, your folk, your people. And the idea in that world, still kind of the idea today, is that you have them over, and then what happens next? Well, they invite you back. So, if I bring them over for a good dinner, I'm getting a meal off next week. I'm getting to go to their house. And that very much was how that culture worked. There was an honor and shame thing. If you didn't invite the person that invited you, that was a very serious thing. The normal expected process of behavior was, if I give you an invite, you give me an invite. I scratch your back, you scratch mine. That's the idea of what was taking place here. I have you over, you have me over, and we all have a very busy social life.
In the ancient world, that expectation of, this will be reciprocated, that was built into the very fabric of how people thought. So, again, think about that dinner table, this exclusive club. What's the problem with that? Well, he wasn't just doing his Thanksgiving dinner. You know, it wasn't a meal for the family. For this Pharisee, this ruler of the Pharisees, this was his, remember, Sabbath. This was part of his religious practice. But it's his religion. Well, if it's religious, where's the sacrifice? True religion is sacrificial. Where's the sacrifice in this dinner table? Well, where's the need to put others first here if you're expecting an invite back? This is a self-serving thing. It has the pretense of religion, but really, it's serving of self. It's an invite with expectation. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. It looked like the host, he was on that occasion, it looked like he was showing hospitality to lots of people, but really this was a social investment, that that's what was taking place.
And Jesus is not saying here, look, don't have people around. He's not saying, look, you can't have a meal with your friends. He's not saying, don't go to the family dinner. That's not the point. Those things are good and commended in many places in Scripture. What he's talking about is this as a religious practice. If the only reason you have people at your dinner table is so that you can later go to theirs for dessert, something's wrong. That's pretend hospitality. You know the individual who says, well, my gift is hospitality. Well, the idea is this man, he would say, well, my gift is hospitality. But really, the only people he's hospitable to are the people who will serve him back. That's the problem.
This type of man, this type of home is one that loves the compliments. Oh, I'm very hospitable because I love people telling me how good I am at hospitality. I love to invite people around because I love to get invited around. Jesus here is emphasizing that biblical hospitality is a gift that's meant to be given to those who can't give back. True Christian hospitality is something that is expressed unto God, not with the ambition of it being reciprocated.
So, in contrast to the four groups listed in verse 12, Jesus tells this man about four other groups that you should invite in verse 13. Look at verse 13:
“When you give a feast invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind.”
Do you know what's going to happen if you go to, I don't know, Velvet Taco up the road after service with somebody who is poor? Well, guess who's paying? You! That's the point. And in that society, the crippled, the blind, the lame, do you know what they could not do? They couldn't work, which meant they didn't have any money. They didn't have any means to reciprocate. They didn't have any way of inviting you back. That just could not take place. Jesus is talking here, and He's talking about having people over, spending time with, making your religious practice of hospitality one that genuinely seeks the betterment of others rather than the serving of self. That's not charity. Charity is not an investment scheme. Charity is for the good of the other. It's marked by compassion that does not expect to be paid back.
The heart of a truly religious act, Jesus is saying, is done before God and for God. That's what matters. There's no assumed return expected here. And look at verse 14. And the return that is important:
“...and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”
You see why this service done not for man, but for God is so important. They can't give back. There is blessing in it, but it's not a material blessing. It's not going to show itself in next week's dinner routine. It's something that's done unto God, and ultimately, the all-seeing God, the just God who insists on rewarding all that is good as well as punishing all that is evil, He will insist on repaying that true service. God will repay because He is just, and His thank you is so much better than dessert next week. That's what Jesus is highlighting here. It's really a very simple call. Who do you surround yourself with? Who do you spend time with? And again, it's not wrong to have friends. It's not wrong to spend time with family. Those things very much are encouraged in the context of Scripture. But is that all? Are those the only people who fill your time?
The family of God is gloriously diverse. And because of that, our hospitality should be gloriously diverse as well. If your social circle, if the people you eat with only ever look like you and do exactly the same things, fit into the same social strata as you do, you're acting more like this ruler of the Pharisees than Jesus.
Mark mentioned earlier how I had the privilege of being at John MacArthur's memorial service yesterday, and it was, it was special. It was a lovely service because it really encapsulated the nature of who that man was. One of the things that came across in the service was how diverse the people involved were. There were so many people of such different backgrounds involved in this service, and that had really flown out of John's heart for people. The choir was full of people from every type of ethnic background. Participating in the service was a Presbyterian, a Baptist, even a Continuationist. You had an African American singing about “Great is Thy Faithfulness," an Irish lady singing “He Will Hold Me Fast,” and a Californian lady singing sweetly from her wheelchair.
It was a type of service that the PBS diversity officer would have loved. But not one part of it was orchestrated. How did that take place? Where did that come from? Well, it flowed out of the man himself. These were the people that he cared about, that he invested in. It was the outflow of John's heart for people. Numerous times it was said at the front by those who were sharing, I don't understand why, I don't know what he saw, but John reached out to me the hand of friendship. That was said many times in the service. And it's true, that's what we're talking about here in Luke 14, verses 12 to 14. God's children, if they are to reflect Christ, are to be generous, are to reach out the hand of friendship to all sorts of people. I knew that to be true myself.
Sarah and I, when we were driving back to the airport, and there was a traffic accident on the way, and I thought I was gonna have to text Becker and say, you better stay up all night and get ready, because I don't know if I'm gonna make it. But thankfully, we got here. As we were going down the road, we were talking about John's kindness, he extended to us. I was 27 when he asked me to go through the process to become an elder in the church. Who makes a 27-year-old an elder? That's incredible generosity.
Before I left to go back to Ireland, he asked me to meet him on a corner. And he took me into a suit shop and bought me a suit so that I would stay on the straight and narrow when I went back to Ireland. He was so kind. In fact, when I got to Ireland, the first person that came and preached to the congregation was John. He interrupted his vacation to come and to minister to the people. Now, it was a disaster because he preached one week and I had to preach the next. So, you know, that was not a nice comparison to have to be made.
When Sarah and I were wrestling with the call to Trinity and what was right and how to think about it, he called on the phone to tell me he was praying that God would make the path clear. Now, none of that makes sense. A young-ger, guy in Ireland, far away, far removed, and yet his heart insisted, not just with me, but with many, on reaching out with kind generosity, interest, love, and friendship. That's what we're talking about here. When it comes to your charity, do you only ever spend time with and help those who in turn will help you back? Or are you seen to show kindness and extend friendship to those who will never be able to help you? That's what Jesus is talking about. That's true religion. That's true charity.
The last course at this awkward dinner table, Jesus offers one more warning, and it's probably the most significant. “A warning not to reject God's invitation with a lame excuse.” A warning not to reject God's invitation with a lame excuse. Look at verse 15:
“When one of those who reclined at table with him heard these things, he said to him, blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God.”
So, you can see the awkward silence. You can picture the scene here. And Jesus has just spoken specifically to the host. All the guests are kind of on edge. This is breaking all social norms. And so, one of them, he tries to like, quieten Jesus to stop Him talking by throwing in this injection of commentary himself in verse 15. It's a subtle undermining of everything that Jesus has said. What Jesus is talking about is charity of that generous, kind, love that reaches out to not just those who are like me, but all sorts of people. And this man, he goes, “Um, no. No, eternity, for eternity, true religion will take, take, take, take, take. It'll receive. That's what it's about.”
Did you notice in verse 14? Jesus talks in verse 14 about being blessed because they cannot repay you. In other words, you're going to be blessed by giving. Now, in contrast in verse 15, this man says, no, no, no, no, no. Blessed are you when you get to eternally take, take, take, take, take. His idea of the eternal kingdom is one of ongoing feeding of self, of self-gratification. That's what he imagines it's all about. That's what the end is longing for. That's a good ending.
In other words, because God is big, and he has and owns all. Really, eternity is about me getting. That's the exciting thing in the mind of the Pharisee. For the Pharisees, that is the aspiration attached to the eternal state. For eternity, I will gratify. I will be satisfied. I will get, get, get, get, get. But in the story that follows, Jesus says that greedy individuals with no time for true charity, well, let me tell you, they're getting nothing. Because they never listened to and never accepted the true invitation of God. Look at verse 16:
“But He said to him, ‘a man once gave a great banquet and invited many. And at the time for the banquet, he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, come, for everything is now ready.’”
In the ancient Near East, you would have got two invitations to a significant banquet, to a wedding feast, or whatever it happened to be. We do have a bit of an equivalent. You know the way sometimes you get a save the date? That idea, this is when the event is taking place. And in that culture, people would have responded to the save the date, I'll be there. I am coming. And then because the nature of a banquet, there's so many parts involved, so much food that had to be cooked, wine that had to be secured, so many components. Again, remember, there's no fridges in these days. So many things that were just contingent on day-off operations. And so, while you knew Wednesday will be the banquet, you weren't 100% sure what time on Wednesday will we actually be eating. You had to wait. And in a small village, which is what's being depicted here, the servant would have come round to those guests who had been invited and responded positively to tell them, dinner is now ready, make your way to the house. And that's what's going on here. The actual invite, the actual second mention, the servant has gone out to tell you dinner is ready.
You know the way sometimes maybe you're a guest to somebody's home. You go for dinner. Well, what tends to happen? Well, you go normally and you sit in the living room and you make small talk with one of them while the other is frantically in the kitchen trying to, you know, get everything ready. Then the host comes out and says, “okay, we're ready now. Would everybody like to move in to the dinner table?” Well, here, the servant is coming and saying, would everybody like to come round to the dinner table? That's the picture that we have here. Now, that in itself is a very common, normal practice in that world. But what was not common is the way the guests responded to the come to the dinner table. Look at verse 18:
“But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, “I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused.” And another said, “I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them. Please have me excused.” And another said, “I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.””
Verse 18, they all began to make excuses. They all alike, it says, began to make excuses. In other words, every single one of them acts in informal unison. Everybody's doing the same thing. Nobody is saying yes. Nobody is coming. Now, if one person got sick that afternoon, the dinner would be okay. But if everybody says, no, I'm not going, what an awkward meal. What a shame for the one who had put in so much effort to make this meal possible. So, this dinner party is about to be ruined because every original guest issues an excuse. And look how lame the excuses are. One says, oh, I can't go because I just bought a field. And now I better go and expect it.
Nobody in the ancient world, nobody in this world, buys a property, buys a piece of land without going and having a look at it first. That's normal. Who is going to spend that much money without even knowing what they're getting? And even if they did, do you know what? The field is still going to be there tomorrow. It's not going to run away during dinner. The dirt will be on the ground.
And then the second one, he goes and he has bought, he says, oxen, and I better go and examine them. The phrase a yoke of oxen means two that could be held together, that could carry a yoke and it be used to drag or apply or carry a cart or whatever it would happen to be. Basically, it was the tractor of their day. And again, who goes out and buys a tractor without first doing a test drive? And in fact, think about it, this guy has bought five yoke of oxen, five tractors. Who needs five tractors? Well, only the very, very rich. And if you have enough money for five tractors, do you know what you have? You have at least a servant that can go out and drive these tractors, and he could have gone and done that job for you.
And even beyond that, do you know when you would have a banquet? Remember we said a banquet? It's different to the meal at lunchtime. It was an evening meal. Well, do you know when the worst time is to go and look at a field? And the worst time is to go and actually work out what the oxen look like when it's dark. And that's exactly what's being said. It's just ridiculous. That's the idea. Not one excuse makes sense. Well, maybe the third.
I don't know what your home life is like. “I have married a wife and therefore I cannot come.” Maybe you married a battle axe. Maybe he's just hand-picked. Maybe you can relate. Now, there was a law in the Torah that spoke about how a newly married man, you know, was not to go for a year into military service. Deuteronomy 24 verse 5, for a year he is to be free to stay at home and bring happiness to the wife he has married.
I remember a time, kind of in the early 90’s, it just seemed in conservative churches, this verse got thrown out all the time, and as soon as somebody got married, a couple got married, the husband or the wife would start to talk about this verse a lot, and basically it was their way to get out of doing anything in church. That was kind of how they, well, you know, military service, got a year at home, year of happiness. That's not what that verse means. That's actually a mishandling of that verse.
Why were you not to go for the first year to military service? It's because you were away. Maybe, if like Adrian, you're gonna go to Argentina for the next six months, but you were to do it without your family, that would be a time for the elders to come and say, it's probably not the wisest. You should be with your wife. We're talking about dinner. Dinner. And I am sure given every person that finally ends up at that table, if the man turned up with his wife, she would have been made very welcome also. The whole thing is ridiculous. That Deuteronomy law never exempted you from normal worship. You still had to go to the temple once a year if you were a male. You still had to go through the normal social norms. That law couldn't be twisted to take you out of those sorts of things.
And so here, I'm married and can't come. The reason it doesn't have, please let me be excused, is it's not just absolutely ridiculous. You can imagine a servant just slamming the door and walking off. Like, why even listen to the end of this man's statement? Remember, he had already received the ‘save the date.’ He'd already received…like, did he get married in the middle of the day? What went on there? Like, you know, you've heard of shotgun weddings. Possibly that's what took place, but this whole thing does not make sense. All three excuses are wild, and it underlines the fact that these individuals, what's the problem? They don't want to go. That's the problem. They don't want to go, and we can assume from the nature of the story, it's not because this host always burns the meal. The rejection of the invitation was really a rejection of the host.
When we read it, and I've heard you giggling, when we've read these three excuses, it all seems so silly. It's laughable. But how often do we not make similar excuses when it comes to our following of Christ and our ongoing obedience of Christ? How often do we not grab desperately at issues of property, issues of work, issues around the family as the excuse why I can't whatever. We politely allow, especially these three areas, property, work, and family, to be given precedent over and above the needs of the kingdom.
Now, very rarely does anybody come out and say, oh, I reject God. I reject His ways; I reject His call. What normally happens with people is they go, oh, I get that, I see the importance of that, but I really need to be at work. I really need to first sort out this thing at home. My family needs whatever. And we ultimately reject God or the call He gives us to specific obedience with a good excuse, a good excuse. We think it's a good reason to reject God's call on our lives. But Scripture is insistent. It's telling us here that there is no excuse that is a good excuse. They're laughable, every single one. When it comes to saying that beside the kingdom of God principles, His way, everything is laughable. If you're going to lift whatever need it is, work, property, family, over and above the things of God, that's ridiculous. Those things are trifles compared to the incomparable and eternal kingdom of God. Look at verse 21:
“So the servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house became angry and said to the servant, go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city and bring the poor and the crippled and blind and lame.’” (Do you remember those four groups mentioned earlier?) “And the servant said, “Sir, what you commanded has been done and there is still room.” And the master said to his servant, “go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled.””
You see the master's reaction here. The terrible excuses are given, and we read in verse 21, he became angry. A rejection of God's invitation is no small thing. Just because you have an excuse doesn't change that reality. His response when he contemplates the terrible excuses, it's a wide invitation to others. He is one with a big heart, this host, that needs people at the dinner table, that demands that there must be people at the dinner table. His desire to show hospitality demands it. It demands a table full of people. And so, the invite is extended to the vulnerable and even to the outsiders, those outside the city, on the highways and the hedges. With this host, there is room for those who normally would be missed, the vulnerable, even those outside the city and highways and hedges. We're talking about here the Gentiles, those not part of the society here in the city.
You think again, He's talking to Pharisees, that basically He's talking about all the people they don't like. All the people they had disregarded and had no time for. You can imagine them eating their soup and they're choking as Jesus speaks. Not only that though, not only are people they wouldn't normally have at this dinner party, but look at verse 24:
"For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet."
This is said really as the summary statement to correct the entitled, expected blessedness. Remember spoken of in verse 15, the Pharisees thought, oh, we'll be blessed, for eternity, we'll keep eating, we'll keep taking, we'll keep getting. And Jesus is saying, not only will there be much more people than you think at this heavenly kingdom banquet, but there will also be many like you who were given an invite and rejected it, who will be shut out.
I think in part here, or the main thing that Jesus is talking about here, is that reality that the Jews of His day who had received the Old Testament, who had received the law, who knew wonderful things about the nature of the coming Messiah. Now that the Messiah walked amongst them, they had rejected Him. That pharisaical system sought to lay a trap for Him, not embrace Him. And they rejected Him because they had a list of excuses. He's a Sabbath breaker. He welcomes tax collectors and sinners. He's not like us.
And so, Jesus is communicating the gospel is going to be opened up in a way not seen before. There was room for Gentiles to come in in the Old Testament, but that was a very rare experience. Now He is indicating what will come. And a time is coming when the majority of the kingdom will be made up by the vulnerable and by the Gentiles. And for these religious Pharisees, those so-called experts in the law, their refusal to respond to the invitation of the Messiah was going to guarantee that they would sit outside of that eternal banquet. They thought their seat was guaranteed. In verse 24, Jesus says,” you will have no place. The door will be locked shut.” Jesus is warning against having any other priority over fellowship with God. He is stressing that when God gives an invitation, you must respond. It is foolishness to put any excuse before that sincere response to Him.
And an invitation has gone out. Mark 1, verse 15, “repent and believe the gospel, for the kingdom of God is at hand.” And now in chapter 14, verse 17, Jesus declares, “come, for everything is now ready.”
Sinner, He has finished his work. He has done all that was required. Everything is now ready. But what excuse will you create? What excuse will you share to avoid having to bow the knee to Christ? The invitation is real. Come, He says, come. The invitation is real, but sadly the excuses are many.
One commentator said, “the two essential points of Jesus' teaching are that no one can enter the kingdom of God without the invitation of God, and that no one can remain outside it but by their own deliberate choice.” Man cannot save himself, but he can damn himself. That's what we're seeing here. Hell isn't an accident. It is a result of a willful rejection of God. I don't want to go. I don't want Him. I don't want that host.
Today, if you reject Christ, no matter what excuse you have in your head, Jesus is saying you only have yourself to blame, for He sincerely invites you to come, for everything is now ready. He offers forgiveness. He offers new life. He offers fellowship with Himself for eternity. That dinner would have given these Pharisees a particular tummy ache. He warns against their self-righteousness, He warns against their self-promotion, He warns against that pretend charity, and then the most important warning he gives is one not to reject God's invitation with your lame excuses. Come, for everything is now ready. Let's pray.
[Prayer] Heavenly Father, we are so thankful that Jesus has not surrounded Himself with people like Him, for none of us are like Him. But like that depicted in the parable, we thank You, Lord, that He has extended that invitation to all sorts of unlikely people. And we give thanks to you, Lord, that many in this room have heard the call of the kingdom and by Your grace, I've responded with repentance and faith, and I've been able to taste and see and know that You are good. But Lord, we do pray that You would help us in our ongoing walk to pursue Christ and all the fullness that is found in Him, that you would guard us against those silly excuses that would cause us to stall in gospel progress. And Lord, we pray especially for those who are here who as yet have not bowed the knee to Christ. And we ask, Lord, that that stubborn heart that is so quick to excuse themselves from the call to follow, to come. We pray, Lord, that now you would stop them in their tracks, that You would take the scales from their eyes, that You would draw them to Yourself, strip every excuse away. May they hear the command of Christ to repent and believe the gospel, for the kingdom of God is at hand. For it's in the name of Jesus we pray, amen. [End]
